The onion question

[mellicious]

Presented without comment: A girl - young, but not a kid, maybe 18 or so - asked me in the store today where to find the onions. "Um, I imagine up front with the vegetables," I said (thinking that it's possible she might be talking about minced onions or something like that). "Oh ok - I've been all over the store," she said, and turned around and went toward the produce section.

(Note that I WOULD comment, but I can't really think of anything funny and/or clever, or even just particularly interesting, to say about it. So I'll let it stand on its own.)

But now I am looking at Wikipedia trying to decide if onions are actually a vegetable or not. I think not, but I don't see that that (long) article says so one way or the other. (Although it does mention "vegetables" at one point rather than "other vegetables" so I suppose that's a clue.) Genus Allium, I knew that part, and allium is a flowering plant, so I guess... not a vegetable? Feel free to weigh in!

Aaand... in that way that tends to happen with Wikipedia, I went from the onion article to the one about Asparagales. That's an order name I haven't heard before; I think back a few years ago when I got on my big plant-cultivating kick, they were still putting onions in Liliales. So that's interesting - to me at least!

By "the store" I mean Wal-Mart, as it happens - not where I usually buy my groceries or where I shop often at all, these days. But I needed paper and that was the closest place I could think of that was likely to sell it to me at a not-utterly-ridiculous price. And come to think of it, given that, I hope the poor girl didn't mean "all over the store" literally - I was just imagining her looking in, y'know, the bread aisle or something, not hardware. That would be very sad.

(Yeah, ok, so that may be a comment after all. Hush.)


(And come to think of it, why have I never considered the topic of onions/vegetables before? Whether tomatoes are a vegetable comes up all the time (no) - so why does nobody ever mention onions?)

Comments

[platypus]

Lots of things in the genus Allium seem to be "I never thought much about how to classify it" (onions, garlic, chives, leeks, etc). But they are, Wikipedia says, among the "bulb and stem vegetables" ("list of culinary vegetables").

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Many of those things are things I don't think of as vegetables, though (see: potatoes). Obviously I have never given this subject proper thought!

Onions

[(Anonymous)]

I think they might technically be herbs.
Happy Holidailies!

Re: Onions

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

My first thought was to say "hmm" to this too. They are things you tend to use to flavor other things with, yes, but I tend to think of herbs as being green things. (See? Hmm...)